The Great Western Retreat

Of all French soldiers currently engaged in military operations, half of them are deployed inside France. And half of those are assigned to protect 717 Jewish schools.

This massive deployment of armed forces in our own cities is a departure from history. It is a moral disarmament, before a military one.

Why does anyone choose to fight in a war? Civilized nations go to war so that members of today's generation may sacrifice themselves to protect future generations. But if there are no future generations, there is no reason whatever for today's young men to die in war. It is "demography, stupid."

On March 11, 2004, 192 people were killed and 1,400 wounded in a series of terrorist attacks in Madrid. Three days later, Spain's Socialist leader, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, was elected prime minister. Just 24 hours after being sworn in, Zapatero ordered Spanish troops to leave Iraq "as soon as possible."

The directive was a monumental political victory for extremist Islam. Since then, Europe's boots on the ground have not been dispatched outside Europe to fight jihadism; instead, they have been deployed inside the European countries to protect monuments and civilians.

"Opération Sentinelle" is the first new large-scale military operation within France. The army is now protecting synagogues, art galleries, schools, newspapers, public offices and underground stations. Of all French soldiers currently engaged in military operations, half of them are deployed inside France. And half of those are assigned to protect 717 Jewish schools. Meanwhile, French paralysis before ISIS is immortalized by the image of police running away from the office of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo during the massacre there.

French soldiers guard a Jewish school in Strasbourg, February 2015. (Image source: Claude Truong-Ngoc/Wikimedia Commons)

You can find the same figure in Italy: 11,000 Italian soldiers are currently engaged in military operations and more than half of them are used in operation "Safe Streets," which, as its name reveals, keeps Italy's cities safe. Italy's army is also busy providing aid to migrants crossing the Mediterranean.

In 2003, Italy was one of the very few countries, along with Spain and Britain, which stood with the United States in its noble war in Iraq -- a war that was successful until the infamous US pull-out on December 18, 2011.

Today, Italy, like Spain, runs away from its responsibility in the war against the Islamic State. Italy's Defense Minister Roberta Pinotti ruled out the idea of Italy taking part in action against ISIS, after EU defense ministers unanimously backed a French request for help.

Italy's soldiers, stationed in front of my newspaper's office in Rome, provide a semblance of security, but the fact that half of Italy's soldiers are engaged in domestic security, and not in offensive military strikes, should give us pause. These numbers shed a light not only on Europe's internal terror frontlines, from the French banlieues to "Londonistan." These numbers also shed light on the great Western retreat.

US President Barack Obama has boasted that as part of his legacy, he has withdrawn American military forces from the Middle East. His shameful departure from Iraq has been the main reason that the Islamic State rose to power -- and the reason Obama postponed a military withdrawal from Afghanistan. This US retreat can only be compared to the fall of Saigon, with the picture of a helicopter evacuating the U.S. embassy.

In Europe, armies are no longer even ready for war. The German army is now useless, and Germany spends only 1.2% of GDP on defense. The German army today has the lowest number of staff at any time in its history.

In 2012, Germany's highest court, breaking a 67-year-old taboo against using the military within Germany's borders, allowed the military to be deployed in domestic operations. The post-Hitler nation's fear that the army could develop again into a state-within-a-state that might impede democracy has paralyzed Europe's largest and wealthiest country. Last January, it was revealed that German air force reconnaissance jets cannot even fly at night.

Many European states slumber in the same condition as Belgium, with its failed security apparatus. A senior U.S. intelligence officer even recently likened the Belgian security forces to "children." And Sweden's commander-in-chief, Sverker Göranson, said his country could only fend off an invasion for a maximum of one week.

During the past ten years, the United Kingdom has also increasingly been seen by its allies -- both in the US and in Europe -- as a power in retreat, focusing only on its domestic agenda. The British have become increasingly insular - a littler England.

The UK's armed forces have been downsized; the army alone is expected to shrink from 102,000 soldiers in 2010 to 82,000 by 2020 - its smallest size since the Napoleonic wars. The former head of the Royal Navy, Admiral Nigel Essenigh, has spoken of "uncomfortable similarities" between the UK's defenses now and those in the early 1930s, during the rise of Nazi Germany.

In Canada, military bases are now being used to host migrants from Middle East. Justin Trudeau, the new Canadian prime minister, first halted military strikes against ISIS, then refused to join the coalition against it. Terrorism has apparently never been a priority for Trudeau -- not like "gender equality," global warming, euthanasia and injustices committed against Canada's natives.

The bigger question is: Why does anyone choose to fight in a war? Civilized nations go to war so that members of today's generation may sacrifice themselves to protect future generations. But if there are no future generations, there is no reason whatever for today's young men to die in war. It is "demography, stupid."

Spain's fertility has fallen the most -- the lowest in Western Europe over twenty years and the most extreme demographic spiral observed anywhere. Similarly, fewer babies were born in Italy in 2015 than in any year since the state was founded 154 years ago. For the first time in three decades, Italy's population shrank. Germany, likewise, is experiencing a demographic suicide.

This massive deployment of armed forces in our own cities is a departure from history. It is a moral disarmament, before a military one. It is Europe's new Weimar moment, from the name of the first German Republic that was dramatically dismantled by the rise of Nazism. The Weimar Republic still represents a cultural muddle, a masterpiece of unarmed democracy devoted to a mutilated pacifism, a mixture of naïve cultural, political reformism and the first highly developed welfare state.

According to the historian Walter Laqueur, Weimar was the first case of the "life and death of a permissive society." Will Europe's new Weimar also be brought down, this time by Islamists?

Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.

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13 Reader Comments

geoffrey ben-nathan • May 4, 2016 at 15:44

How incredible that Europe's great culture, developed over a thousand years or more, has every possibility of slowly sinking into a miasma of Muslim mediocrity. Sic transit gloria.

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Tommy Atkins • May 4, 2016 at 15:00

Germany wants an army composed of all the E.U. nations; this is why the various components of the E.U. feel they can run down their individual forces. It seems that the Western nations have very little interest in fighting Islamic terrorism, or even acknowledging that it is in essence Islamic. As it has been decided to create a hybrid culture of Eurabians, it is obvious that Islam must be accommodated and indulge in the fantasy that jihad terrorism is not Islamic. Of course Europe will in time, very little time, be destroyed by Islam but this seems to be an acceptable price to pay for the birth of this new entity of Eurabia. This type of political thinking is a form of insanity but, barring revolution, it is very hard to see how it can be stopped. The future is very uncertain.

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Plamen • May 4, 2016 at 12:24

Islam's terrorism wave already changed and will keep on changing the entire idea of European security, "transforming" it from a military one to an "internal", homeland-security-like one. From world wars and cold war defenses and armies to a predominant gendarmerie-like tactics and units.While such shift seems grounded, in no way it should mean abandoning the war strength.
But that is what happens and Islam soldiers increase its own by day. That's what they are waiting for so long. And Russian military machine, too.

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Ron • May 4, 2016 at 12:13

Nature abhors a vacuum and so does an ideological battle. Unless Europe's leaders start taking more effective measures to confront the growth of radical Islam within their countries and better assimilate the Muslim population, the future of Europe looks very bleak.

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jeb • May 4, 2016 at 11:58

A question I have been brainstorming is the whole equation for 'guns or butter." 30 years ago economists would determine a healthy society's economy by the correlation between guns and butter. That equation today seems to be between guns and spoiled lard, as welfare societies, which developed in Europe gave way to such egress as to harm the economic solvency and force a down size of force effectiveness.Military effectiveness being misunderstood as a result of Indochina and other sorts of pro-capitalist enterprises in nations so backwards as to be unable to absorb progressive measures necessary to build nations. President Obama has jumped into the mess both feet. And worse has done so by allying himself with Iran, Russia and Muslim Brotherhood "socialists" .This is not simply the undoing of European and US "colonial capitalism" it means ruin for the nations attempting to develop by destroying anything foreign to them. Which have given them through immigration to Europe a real advantage in reducing those nations to socialist states that are reacting to the threat Islam poses in terrorist veil.

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Frederica • May 4, 2016 at 11:10

Since the outbreak of the Paris attacks and now the Brussels incident, the heavy presence of soldiers on the streets will get even heavier with each subsequent attack, making Europe look more a garrison state than Israel. I have read in a few sources recently that European nations have consulted Israel on security issues and techniques.

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Michael Maguire • May 4, 2016 at 09:48

Appeasement never works, whether you are dealing with the school bully or with Hitler, or with the ideology of Islam. Its adherents have made it clear, their raison d'etre is nothing short of conquering the world for Allah thus assuring themselves of a prized place in paradise at the moment of death.

The Somalian-born former Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who was forced flee to the US because of threats from Muslims, tells us all we need to know about Islam. She warned the west of what they were embracing when they opened their doors to mass Muslim immigration. This is a quote from her:

"Islam is not a religion of peace. It's a political theory of conquest that seeks domination by any means it can. Every accommodation of Muslim demands leads to a sense of euphoria and a conviction that Allah is on their side. They see every act of appeasement as an invitation to make fresh demands."

Unfortunately, only Donald Trump alone, has shown any concern or understanding of the dangers now staring Western communities in the face and growing worse by the day.

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Dean • May 4, 2016 at 09:45

Canada has always lived under the US military umbrella, safe in its self-contained geography, and fortunate to have a protector to its south.

That is why the people are so insular, naive and sometimes ignorant of a reality where those who are threatened must defend themselves or be consumed by Communism, Fascism, or Islamism.

Our leaders are interested in the niceties and the easy problems of the day, such as "inclusion" and "climate change" because almost everyone is included in our society (the ones who are not probably do not want to be or are just enjoying or benefiting from their victim status) and the climate change issue gives a fake problem lots of attention because real problems are much too unpleasant, too insoluble or much too real.

Our new PM is a baby and a spoiled brat (the kind coddled by his privileged family and enjoyed the luxury of travel, the finest cuisine and best of everything). He had white guilt instilled in him and his idea of heroics includes giving Islamists a home in Canada and turning Canada into a sharia-friendly place. He does not have a clue what his actions mean nor does he care because his leftist handlers have told him that leftism requires him to buy into self-destructive leftist agendas.

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Robert Davis • May 4, 2016 at 09:14

I entirely agree with Meotti and indeed the French military and political stance is totally absurd, counter productive and strategically a real MESS in particular regarding antisemitism since 90% of its origin comes from the french political stance vis a vis Israel. It would suffice to stop the French media to keep its smears, false allegations, stupid "Palestinian" narrative and other absurd and useless attacks to lower the stupid Nazis' attacks on Jews, synagogues etc. which have spread also to Christians. It's absurd for France to think it can destroy Israel using false words, and Hitlerian pr and and real vocabulary TRASH with nonsensical euphemisms! It takes only a fool to think he can avoid war by calling war "a battle between people" or a lie calling it an...embrace"! The whole socialist disgrace is a national/multicultural socialism tentative to destroy nations just for the sake of a few potentates who want to clinch to their jobs at any cost.

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James Mills • May 4, 2016 at 08:58

A lot of the comment from Giuilo Meotti here is concerned with the fall in the birth rate across Europe. But is this such a bad thing? Practically the only decision a couple can make which a government cannot directly effect is how many children they have. Given the number of youths out of work in Europe and the likelihood that robots are thought will be used to make this worse in the years ahead, most couples are making pretty sensible decisions about childbirth when left to it.

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Eric Jan Kamp • May 4, 2016 at 08:35

The cause of the Islamic successes in Europe is not merely due to their buildings of mosques, money, demogaphic and immigration factors. The root cause lays in that precise Western VACUUM, steadily occupied by Islam, which is constituted by a certain lack of vision, plentitude of false ideology, lack of true religion, lack of purpose, lack of guts and strength. Western civilization appears, like Chesterton's quote: "... full of old Christian values gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other, and are wandering alone...".

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Ed in North Texas • May 4, 2016 at 08:05

" Will Europe's new Weimar also be brought down, this time by Islamists?"

Probable, though (just barely) not inevitable. Don't count on the US, we apparently are about to elect another "Imperial Executiveness", whether His or Her is yet to be decided (though I believe it is more likely to be Her).

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Mike O'Neill • May 4, 2016 at 07:06

* Will Europe's new Weimar also be brought down, this time by Islamists? *

So much time is spent on the sociological impact of the mass invasion into southern Europe and across to Scandinavia, with but fleeting reference to the underlying economic and financial implications of the whole affair.
From one end of Europe to the other, nations are paying (Danegeld?) to keep the invaders in the manner to which they demand and are increasingly becoming used to receiving. This has to be paid for. Until taxes rise commensurately, the load is taken by increased national borrowings, which allows response without disturbing the equilibrium, for a time at least, intentionally so.The borrowing has to be serviced (interest paid) and at that point taxes must rise and people will notice, later if not sooner. An alternative is to encourage inflation, which slowly reduces the ongoing debt burden by devaluing earning power of workers over time.This is where Germany (in particular, but other nations as well) has very bad memories of the inflation associated with the Weimar Republic in the early 1920s. If that skeleton comes out of the cupboard any time soon, and I can see it doing so, then the impact on the societal mayhem will be huge, precipitating demands for an end to freebies for foreigners.Additionally, the depletion of social security funds and the imposition of tax increases to fund the higher outgoings, will in turn raise the costs and hence selling prices of German goods on home and world markets. The mess has to be paid for and it's not happening right now . . .One way or another, citizens and consumers will be paying for this essentially useless influx.

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